Everyone interested in web dev should own a VPS. After a year working at a Rails shop that deploys to Heroku, I decided it's time to learn some sysadmin basics

Everyone interested in web dev should own a VPS. After a year working at a Rails shop that deploys to Heroku, I decided it's time to learn some sysadmin basics. Here are some things I've done the past couple months that might give other noobs some ideas. - Make aliases for most Linux commands. Abstract Linux into a simple interface of aliases that you can browse in your .zshrc/.bashrc/fish.config. Linux becomes much more enjoyable when you can type `untar <file>` instead of remembering the magical incantation `sudo tar -xzvf <file>`. Make aliases for everything. nginx-reload. nginx-restart. alias z="vim ~/.zshrc && source ~/.zshrc". I even abstract apt-get commands into ag-install, ag-update, ag-remote, etc. - Use dropbox cli, a shared folder with dotfiles, and symlinks to keep dotfiles synced between your server(s) and laptop(s). - Install tmux on it so that you can `$ tmux attach` to a persistent shell so that things still run when you close your remote connection and they're still there when you log back in. - Run weechat (terminal irc client) in tmux so that you never have to log out of irc again. - Learn how to rsync up and down files from your server. - rsync your Sinatra app (or whatever) onto your server and run it on port 5000, immediately see it live. - Install nginx and have your VPS serve multiple domain names, each domain name pointing to a Sinatra app running on port 5000, 5001, and 5002. - Run each website in its own tmux tab. At the beginning it's easier to reason about a foreground process than some daemonized process. - Install postgres or whatever database you use to your VPS. Get your db-driven app to connect to it. Connect to your remote db using your favorite db gui. - Take notes of all the commands you use to set up each component so that you can refer to them later, see how you might have messed up. - Learn enough bash/zsh/fish to automate all of those commands. Polish it enough so that you can curl your script from a Github gist on a fresh VPS and it will set up your entire environment. - Install `htop` as a nice overview of your server's stats and the processes that are running. Run it in another tmux tab. My tmux right now has a tab for weechat (irc), tabs for my Clojure apps, and an htop tab. On Friday nights I pretend I'm NASA mission control. - Learn how to use the `ssh` command to reverse tunnel a connection from your VPS to an app you're running on your local machine for a fast development feedback loop. - Learn how to use your VPS to encrypt your connection when you're working at coffee shops. I'm still a noob but I leveled up considerably from this quest arc. I highly recommend. I still don't have a raging clue about most of Linux, even stuff like what all the folders are supposed to be for: /var/opt /etc/www /usr/local /usr/shared/local ... etc. and why files go the places they go, but it's all an iterative process. Email me (profile) if you need help with any of the bullet points. I am trying to shape it into a more helpful blog post to share with other noobs.